Twenty-two-year-old Lucas Jumalon has won the 2026 World Series of Poker (WSOP Main event) $10,000 No-Limit Hold’em Main Event, securing a $10 million first-place prize and the championship gold bracelet. Jumalon, from Spokane, Washington, held the chip lead from the first hand of the final table to the last, outlasting a field of 9,208 entries, the fourth-largest in the event’s history. The tournament began on July 2, but the final table was held back 20 days to accommodate a live ESPN broadcast running August 3 to 5, the first such delay since the November Nine format ended in 2016.

At 22 years, four months and 27 days, he became the second-youngest Main Event champion, behind only Joe Cada, who won at 21 in 2009.The final day was over in under two hours at Horseshoe Las Vegas, closing out eleven days of play. The win takes his lifetime live tournament earnings past $10 million, from roughly $145,000 before this run. A recent Grand Canyon University graduate in business administration and data analytics, he started out in $0.25/$0.50 home games at college. 

The Key Hands That Decided the WSOP Main Event

The heads-up match pitted Jumalon against 40-year-old Lauri Saaskilahti, a Finnish professional based in Spain, and lasted just 17 hands. Entering the final session, Jumalon held a chip advantage of 109 big blinds compared to Saaskilahti’s 75 big blinds. Jumalon extended his lead early, winning a large pot after flopping a set of eights and forcing a fold on the turn. Jumalon further widened the chip gap by calling a 37 million chip river bluff from Saaskilahti with a middle pair of tens against queen-high.

Saaskilahti briefly shifted the momentum with an all-in preflop double-up, committing his remaining 131 million chips from the button with ace-ten against Jumalon’s ace-nine. While the turn card briefly gave Jumalon two pairs, the river card delivered a diamond to complete a runner-runner flush for Saaskilahti, bringing the chip counts closer to parity.

The decisive hand came shortly after. On a board of four of clubs, ace of spades, king of spades, jack of spades and six of spades, Jumalon overbet 180 million chips into a pot of 100 million holding the queen of spades for the nut flush. Saaskilahti called with jack-three of diamonds for third pair, leaving himself 34 million chips, or 8.5 big blinds. Jumalon closed it out on the next hand. He open-shoved from the button with king-six and Saaskilahti called all-in from the big blind with ace-seven. A flop of jack, six, eight was followed by a second six on the turn, giving Jumalon trip sixes and leaving Saaskilahti drawing dead before the river.

Final Table Payouts and Points

The conclusion of the tournament established the final payouts and ranking points for the nine-handed table. Saaskilahti took $6,000,000 for second, his largest career live payout. Han Feng finished fifth for $2,250,000, with sixth through ninth each earning at least $1,000,000. Canadian poker veteran Greg Mueller finished in third place, earning a prize of $3,750,000, while Michael Gagliano secured fourth place for $2,750,000.

In addition to the baseline financial prizes, the tournament distributed Card Player Player of the Year points and PokerGO Tour points to the participants based on their final placement. Jumalon acquired 3,300 Player of the Year points, moving him into 33rd place overall in the multi-event annual standings. He also claimed 1,550 PokerGO Tour points, which marks his first qualifying placement on the high-stakes leaderboard and positions him within the top ten of those standings for the current season.

Jumalon’s rail included tournament professionals and former university classmates. Professional player Patrick Leonard assisted Jumalon with structural preparation for the final table matches. He is the fourth consecutive American to win the Main Event, and the third to take it at exactly 22, joining Peter Eastgate in 2008 and Pius Heinz in 2011.

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